Drawing by Oscar Scher from the book "The Secret Language of Color"
by Joann Eckstut and Arielle Eckstut |
Despite that enduring symbol created by every child with a crayon, the sun is white. It emits white light, a mixture of all visible spectral colors. Spectral colors are composed of light waves of a single frequency, as opposed to a mixture of frequencies and colors. We recognize these spectral colors as the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The mnemonic ROY G BIV includes the color indigo only because Isaac Newton, the guy with the prism who first named the colors of spectrum, wanted to match the color scale to the musical scale of seven notes, a nod to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras from the 6th century BC. Also, indigo was a valuable commodity in Newton's time, so why not? We now know indigo is not a spectral color.
And yes, at certain times of the day, the sun does appear to be yellow. This is because sunlight scatters throughout the earth's atmosphere unevenly. The sun can also appear orange or red.
Does knowing the sun is white light and not yellow light make a difference? Possibly. We should be able to recognize that light affects color. We should also know that wavelengths of light do not exist as color until we see them. And since our seeing is compromised by what we know and what we expect to see, knowing more should lead to seeing more or to at least understanding the possibility of seeing differently. And, most importantly, we should recognize that matching the colors we see with pigments is all an illusion of perception.
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The color of light is additive color. Additive color primaries are red, green, and blue. (Your computer screen and television are examples of additive color.) Add all the colors of light together and you will get white light. On the other hand, mixing the colors of an artist's palette together will result in a muddy mess. (Note: "mud" is just a mixture of colors without a color temperature. Give it a color temperature and identity and it will once again become useful.)
Most of what we see is subtractive color, the result of light bouncing off an object. Some wavelengths of color are absorbed by the object and some are reflected back to our eyes. Subtractive color mixing is used in all forms of printed materials and in painting. Additive and subtractive color are two completely different processes. We can visually attempt to match the color and value of what we are seeing with paint, but we cannot create the color of light with subtractive color mixing. |
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Our primary colors are not accurate |
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The color primary model of red, yellow, and blue was first developed in the first century. It was later used by eighteenth century painter and engraver Jacob Christoph Le Blong who invented a three-color printing process. While, red, yellow, and blue do work as primaries, we now know that cyan, magenta, and yellow are more accurate primaries for subtractive color. The designation of red, yellow, and blue as primary colors predates modern scientific color theory but is still used in art education and color theory today, most notably by primarily schoolchildren and artists. |
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Does using outdated information affect our use of color? It certainly can be frustrating for a child trying to mix purple with something akin to ultramarine blue and cadmium red. Red, yellow, blue is not the most effective color system nor the most useful. Cyan, magenta, and yellow offer a wider range of color mixtures with more color integrity. While most artists are not dependent on using just three primary colors, maybe it's time to consider updating our color primary system and correcting confusing and conflicting information.
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Interesting and informative books on color: The Secret Language of Color by Joann Eckstut and Arielle Eckstut Color, A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair Chromophobia by David Batchelor |
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